Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Frogs are about as important as
an alternative band could be. The duo's insane 1989 faux-
gay-power-folk album It's Only Right and Natural
became something of a cult classic. Nirvana and Pearl Jam
had it played over PA systems before performances; the
Blake Babies named their EP Rosy Jack World after a
song on it, and were known to cover "I Don't Care If You
Disrespect Me (Just So You Love Me)" as an encore; the
Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan and James Iha have joined
the Frogs on stage at their rare, mind-blowing live
appearances.

There is very little, uh, "hard" information available
regarding the Frogs. Brothers Jimmy and Dennis Flemion were
first noted on the "thank you" list for Die Kreuzen's
Cows and Beer EP back in '82. Since then, the duo
has done a lot of home recording. The self-titled first
album is a curiously out-of-time blend of Anglo-clever
pop-clichés, heavily referential to Roy Wood and
Sparks but with some unusual Christian/smut lyrics tossed
into the stew. That few people noted its release is no
great surprise.

Then, according to rumor, the Frogs began to send around
cassettes of a similarly appointed second LP, backed with
some examples of the pair "goofing around." The latter
caught the ear of Gerard Cosloy, then head of Homestead
Records, and some of the songs were issued as the Frogs'
second LP. Declaring themselves leaders of the "Gay
Supremacist" movement, the Flemings/Frogs caused a lot of
ruckus with their (presumably) tongue in cheek lyrical
thrust. Encased in a sleeve showing a little boy wearing a
pink triangle badge, songs like "Been a Month Since I Had a
Man" and "These Are the Finest Queen Boys (I've Ever Seen)"
generated an enormous amount of pissed-off press, but the
crazy Tyrannosaurus Rex-like psychedelia and the weird aura
created by the lyrics deserve to be heard.

It's Only Right and Natural sparked a ferocious
controversy, played out in any number of public forums.
Were the Frogs actually gay or were they homophobes? Were
they making fun of homophobia? Were they making fun of
political correctness? Was this argument even relevant?
Dennis and Jimmy answered at least one of these questions,
and upped the ante, when they reappeared in 1991 with a new
(unreleased) recording, Racially Yours, and a new
concept. This time, they weren't gay any more. One of them
was in blackface and the other was in whiteface
and they did songs about racial tension. Later tours'
repertoires dipped into both albums, and added songs aimed
to offend bandwagoneering musicians ("In the Year of Our
Lord Grunge") and, well, absolutely everybody ("Fuck Off").
Incidentally, Jay Tiller of Couch Flambeau served as the
Frogs' tour bassist.

In the meantime, the Frogs kept recording tape after
tape of their "Made Up Songs," distributed to anybody who
happened to chance onto their mailing list. A boxed set (!)
of their best songs was planned for release on Homestead in
the early '90s; when the label changed managers, it was
called off. A live album recorded at CBGB on the Right
and Natural tour, featuring an over-the-top medley
of "Free Bird," "The Pretender" and "Luka," was readied in
1992 for Collision Time, but the label folded before it
could be released. And Racially Yours was too much
of a hot potato for any label to handle. For a while in
1994, El Recordo planned to put it out, but that fell
through.

A few Frogs recordings have snuck out here and there,
though. The mediocre "Smack Goes the Dragon" appeared on
the 7-inch boxed set compilation Bruce Lee, Heroin and
the Punk Scene (on the San Francisco label Massacre at
Central Hi); in '94, Matador released a single with
heartfelt, distorted live versions of the gay-period "Adam
+ Steve" and the race-period "Now You Know You're Black."
In one of the strangest incidents in recent musical
history, the Frogs appeared on the B-side of Pearl
Jam's "Immortality" single, straight-facedly covering that
band's "Rearviewmirror." Two Frogs records were released by
Matador in 1996: a five-years-delayed single entitled "Here
Comes Santa's Pussy" and a compilation of "Made Up Songs"
called My Daughter the Broad.